What is a Social Engineering Attack?

The art of social engineering involves convincing others to provide private information. Criminals employ social engineering techniques because it is frequently simpler to take advantage of your inherent tendency to trust others than to figure out how to hack your program. As an illustration, it is considerably simpler to trick someone into giving you their password than attempting to hack it.

They know who and what to trust is the foundation of security. It's important to know when to trust someone when they say they do and when to ensure the person you're conversing with is who they are. The same is true of utilizing websites and engaging in online activities: when do you feel confident that the website you are accessing is reliable or secure enough to give personal information? The foundational strategies of deception, manipulation, and trust are used in social engineering. But the increasingly skilled cybercriminal has a toolbox full of varied social engineering attack methods, including baiting, phishing, whaling, and more. The pretense of being a reliable person or resource is typical among these frauds.

Types of social engineering attacks:

Baiting

Attacks that employ bait entice a victim's interest or avarice by making a false promise. They deceive individuals into stepping into a trap so they may steal their personal information or infect their machines with malware. The most hated kind of baiting disperses malware through physical objects. Infected flash drives are frequently used as bait by attackers, who place them in plain sight where potential victims are sure to see them (e.g., bathrooms, elevators, the parking lot of a targeted company). The lure has a legitimate appearance, including a label that presents it as the business's payroll list.

Out of curiosity, the victims pick up the bait and place it into their home or office computer, which causes the system to download malware automatically. Baiting con games don't always have to be played in the real world. Online baiting takes the form of attractive advertisements that direct visitors to harmful websites or prod them to download malware-laden software.

Scareware

Scareware bombards victims with false alerts and threats. Users are deceived into thinking that malware is on their machine, which leads them to install software that either serves no purpose or is malware in and of itself. Other names for scareware include fraudware, deception software, and rogue scanning software.

One ordinary sort of scareware is the legitimate-looking pop-up advertising that displays in your browser when you browse the internet and contain text like "Your machine may be infected with harmful spyware apps." Either it offers to install the utility for you or sends you to a malicious website that infects your machine. Additionally, spam emails that provide false alerts or urge recipients to purchase useless or hazardous services are standard for scareware to spread.

Watering hole

This less common form of social engineering uses a reputable or well-known website. The perpetrator will first choose their intended victims, such as the company workers they wish to rob. The next step is to identify the frequented websites of the targeted personnel or their online "watering hole." The "watering hole" will get malware infection from the hacker. The hacked website is now prepared to infect the targets with malware upon their access. This code will route their selected target to another website, where the virus is being housed.

Pretexting

The most obvious "confidence trick" in social engineering is probably pretexting. It is a type of impersonation that depends on the end user's incapacity to determine if the source is authentic. Typically, this takes the form of a hostile actor impersonating a customer who needs access to the end user's data over the phone. With the development of additional digital communication channels, using a false identity has become simpler for these bad actors because it is more difficult to identify a reliable social profile, caller, or email address. Therefore, it is crucial to constantly confirm that you are speaking with the correct party before giving any critical information.

Strategies to assist stop social engineering assaults

Training on Security Awareness

Employee awareness is the most accessible and efficient strategy to counter the threat of social engineering in your company. Employees are far less likely to fall for social engineering scams if they have received training and are aware of them. Your team's exposure to cyber-security risks will significantly lessen your business's vulnerability to social engineering. You significantly lower your risk of manipulation and its repercussions by fostering a culture of awareness and training.

Periodically Simulating Phishing

The most successful and prevalent kind of cybercrime is phishing. It has been around for a long time and continues to deceive people. Regularly running phishing simulations at work teaches staff without putting sensitive information at risk. It allows you to see if there are any trends and which employees are falling for the phishing attacks.

I strive to educate readers about these typical human attacks in this post. To avoid writing a lengthy post, I covered common risks and methods. There are several social engineering assaults. Educating readers about social engineering assaults is the primary goal.